Author Archives: wciecon
Capital Formation in Canada: The Sequel
I decided to do a bit more work with my Canadian gross-fixed capital formation series for the period 1870 to 2010 to see if I could estimate a simple regression model that might explain its fluctuations. If everything can be explained by a few simple economic variables, then the downward trend in the ratio since […]
Why “great teacher” doesn’t get you on the short list
I'm spending today doing course outlines, meeting with students, and reading letters of reference.* Carleton is hiring this year. I'm on the labour/behavioural economics committee, which so far has received over 100 applications. A candidate's letters of reference are a key part of the package. Generally I skip to the end and read the last […]
God and Man at Harvard
60 years ago an undergraduate at an "Ivy League" US university didn't like the economics and politics that were being taught there. He didn't boycott classes. Instead he wrote a book about it. The full title of William F. Buckley's book is "God and Man at Yale: the Superstitions of 'Academic Feedom'". (I haven't read […]
Could periodontal competition make root canals more expensive?
On the right, the evil representative of the dental industry, seeking to maintain dentists' monopoly on the provision of all dental services. On the left, the noble entrepreneur, who only wishes to make the world a brighter place by providing safe, affordable teeth-whitening services. This image is taken from a video created by the libertarian […]
Blue sky money two – money and not banking
Banking is a subset of finance. Money and finance go together. Money and banking go even more together. But they don't have to go together. Maybe they didn't ought to go together. Finance is unstable. Banking is even more unstable than the rest of finance. A bank makes promises it knows it might not be […]
Canada’s Evolving Investment-Output Ratio
A phone discussion with a reporter this week on trends in Canadian investment and capital formation piqued my curiosity as to what the long-term trends in Canadian gross fixed capital formation have been. Apparently, despite the global financial crisis and associated economic uncertainty, business investment and capital formation is still relatively strong at the moment […]
Difficulty with comments
There's been a recent surge in the number of comments taken hostage by our spam filter. If you don't see your comment within a short period of time, please send an e-mail to either me or the post's author, or post a short comment to the effect that a previous comment doesn't seem to have […]
Public Policy and Job/Publicity Opportunities for Economics Students
Yesterday NDP leadership hopefull Brian Topp released a taxation policy paper [PDF]. Sun News interviewed Topp last night and I acted as a responder – video available here. One particular item of interest is the introduction of a new 35% tax bracket starting at $250,000 (the existing highest tax bracket starts at $132,406 in 2012 and […]
Why has (private) debt increased?
I'm not talking about government debt. I'm talking about the debt of households and firms. And I'm talking long run, not just the last few years. Over the last several decades, the ratio of debt to GDP has increased a lot. Not just in Canada, but in most rich countries, as far as I know. […]
Real wages during the recession
I've seen a few stories about recent trends in wages, and too many of them seem to be trying to make a big deal out of movements that – when in put in context – are really too small to say much of anything. [Updated in an almost-certainly futile attempt to combat confirmation bias.]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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